Playing With Fire

by Amelia E. Barr

To the Episcopalian the prayers are everything; to the Presbyterian it is the sermon; and there was a sigh of satisfaction when Dr. Macrae read with clear, powerful enunciation the last four verses of the sixth chapter of Hebrews, and boldly announced that he would speak "first of God the Chooser, then of God the Slain, then of God the Comforter."

From these great seminal truths he reasoned of righteousness and judgment to come with a penetrative, judicial power; but he quickly passed this stage and entered into their enforcement with an overwhelming insistence. Something was to be donerather than explained. The sermon was almost fiercely theological, but through it all there was that wonderfully inspired look, that diviner mind, that "little more" which declares the Superman to be in control.

Two remarks showed something of the personal struggle that he was going through. Speaking of the doubting spirit prevalent in the whole religious world, he said: "You will find in the words of my text the remedy: that, by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us." And, again, very pointedly, he asked: "When we have done wrong, how shall we remedy the wrong? I will tell you. We must work day and night, as men work on a railway when the bridge is broken down. For all traffic between our souls and heaven will be interrupted until we get this ruin—this reason for God's withdrawal—out of the way."

The last sentences of his sermon were given to defending the creed of his country, and the Minister who does this clasps the heart of his people to him. He preached an hour and the time was as ten minutes. No one moved until he closed the Book and, with a glowing face and a joyful voice, gave the benediction.

He looked ten years younger than he did when entering the pulpit. He appeared to be much taller and of a larger bulk, and his face shone and his eyes glowed with more than mortal light. For, at that hour of superman control, the virtue of the spiritual erected and informed the physical. The congregation longed to speak to him and to touch his hand, but he walked through the gazing throng with uplifted face and towering form, silent and enwrapt with his own power and eloquence, and, going into the little vestry to unrobe, remained there until the Earl and Lady Cramer had departed, and only a few humble and fervent worshipers lingered thoughtfully among the graves in the churchyard. To these he spoke, and they looked into his gracious, handsome face, touched almost reverently the hand he offered and to their dying day talked of him as of a man inspired and miraculous, a true Preacher of His Word.

At his own door Marion met him with a kiss, a thing so unusual that it had a kind of solemnity in it. "My good, wonderful father!" she whispered, "there is no man can preach like you!" His heart beat pleasantly to her love and admiration, and, though Mrs. Caird only looked at him as he took his place at the table, he was as well satisfied as he had been with Marion's greeting. He could see that she had been weeping. The light of prayer was on her face, and from the whole household he heard the silent psalm of thanksgiving.

That day he remained at home, and on Monday he did the same. He thought he was honestly "working day and night as men work on a railway when the bridge is broken." Something had gone wrong between God and his soul. The Power with the multitude which had been given him he still retained, but that wonderful faculty within us which feels after and finds the Divinity did not respond to his call. Yet he knew well that we have our being in God, that God's ear lies close to our lips, that it is always listening, that we sigh into it, even as we sleep and dream. Why did not God give him again the personal joy of His salvation? He walked hour after hour all Monday up and down his study, examining and defending himself; for this attitude is almost certainly our first one when we come penitently to God. Yet Dr. Macrae knew well that only with blinding tears and breaking heart can the sinner go to His Maker and plead: "Cast me not away from Thy Presence, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy Salvation."

Tuesday he was physically weary and when he opened the book he was considering, Hugh Miller's "Red Stone," he could not read it. The words passed before his eyes, but his mind refused to notice them, and he threw down the volume and resigned himself to religious reverie. His eyes were on his closed Bible, and he was recalling in a regretful mood the power and splendor of its promises and assurances. He was "feeling after God, if haply he might find Him," trying to call up arguments for his existence, his personality, His loving and constant interflow into the affairs of men. But he had lost the habit of Faith, and was continually finding himself face to face with the incomprehensible problems which Science may propound but can never answer: Whence come we? Whither do we go? Why was man created? Why does he continue to exist? What has become of the vast multitudes of the dead? What will become of the vaster multitudes that may yet tread the earth?

But ever when he reached the outermost rim of this useless thought, these awful and sacred questions still called to his soul for an answer. Indeed, he felt acutely that he had not gained from Science any intelligible religious system; nor yet any belief which he could profess, or which he could defend from an assailant. He could find in it nothing that a man could have recourse to in the hour of trouble, or the day of death; and, when Mrs. Caird came into his study about the noon hour, he felt compelled to speak to her. With a quick, nervous motion he laid his hand upon some books at his side and complained wearily:

"All they say about God is so terribly inadequate, Jessy."